This is a place where we can discuss what strategies seem to be a big deal in different regions. It would be nice if we can share, so we can prepare for different strategies at Worlds. For example, descoring is a really big thing in the WA-BC region, so almost nobody drops entire stacks onto a goal.
Seen lots of 1 ring on a goal, opposing rings under the ladder.
On matches with the opposing alliance having 1 robot that can remove rings I’ve seen the least capable scorer play defense and keep the alliance from removing rings.
Only one team with the goals under the ladder.
Speaking as someone who has attended most of the mid-atlantic competitions, I would say that placing one ring on each goal is a common trend…
It seems like the fastest team who can descore, and then reown the goals, they are usually the winning alliance. ACME Robotics, the 12 teams, have really cleaned up all the competition because they were able to descore and rescore really fast…
I think the winners at Worlds will be able to control the rings and the movable goals. I think those are the decisive factors…
Maybe a combination of Green Eggs and ACME??? ::hinthint::
At the Regional Vex tournament in Redmond, WA, we saw lots of robots with an “instantaneous” autonomous scorer, where a preloaded tube would be held physically by the robot and surrounding, but not touching the wall post. The robot would then drive forward, scoring the preloaded tube “instantly”. By the end of the day, there were many robots using this in matches and skills challenges.
As for strategy itself, there was a large focus on scoring one or two tubes on a goal due to the insanely fast descoring capability of some teams (cough 1107B). Putting tubes into the ladder wasn’t a huge trend, but there was still a fair amount of that, and we didn’t see many goals put into the ladder (though a 1346 team managed to do so).
Hahaha, same thing happened to us the first time we showed up at a competition with it. 
It’s the stupid simple thing that once you see it is so easy to copy the idea, and therefore can even be done the day of.
~Jordan
Yes, I’m sure everyone had a facepalm moment seeing it for the first time; kind of reminds me of the standoffs used in clean sweep to knock over the two footballs suspended on the wall – a five minute change (for some robots) and 10 more points on the other side of the field.
another thing about descoring,
at the beginning of the season (november), the all “rookie” teams had some sort of descore mechanism (without scorer)
because all a descore is is a fork on an end of the arm its simple and has only one motion
for a scorer, you would need a separate motion for pickup (more advanced teams)
so all the people complaining that the game is “too” hard for rookie teams, think again, because the descore is stupid simple and extremely deadly
btw 10B, our robot can now “control goals” too 
see you at BCIT
any region has many rookie bots that “ram” in autonomous?
In our area I have seen quite a few. Some of them not really rookie-level bots. Many times pretty high-level and bigger-name teams use the ram strategy. 12A at the VMAC used it against 24A in the finals, for instance, because of 24A’s 35-point autonomous routine. We had many teams use the ramming strategy against 24C because of our 35-point autonomous routine.
~Jordan
I’m fairly scared. We took apart our robot about a week ago…working on something different.
I wonder how many people thought of the “static preload scorer” completely independently, and how many were guided by cryptic Q&A questions.
Can anyone do something similar (nearly unpowered preload wall goal score) from the other starting position?
our competition in WI had the same preload thing. we started it and then a lot of other teams that previously had no autonomous had this as one. many claw bots have been putting rings in the ladder, but nobody has placed the goals INTO the middle yet in competitions that i have been in
we were talking about a “prescore” tube on a movable goal, but that would require an almost 18 bot just touching the corner of the colored tile. the tube would also have to drop down from a mechanism so its not as easy as the wall…
What’s the general trend for your region’s robots? Do teams run strafes, claws and separate descore systems? At the BCIT competition today and tomorrow, there seems to be a lot of needle pick ups.
I was walking around the pits at the BCIT event tonight (nearly 60 teams) and saw a few robots that were clearly designed to pick up loaded goals. Tomorrow should be very interesting.
I totally agree with rick, tomrorow will be interesting, and i expect most games to be really close, and those few seconds of efficiency will make a huge differnces
Anyone like the way I started inside the stack of tubes ? 
yes, we thought that was ingenious better than the “prescore” loophole that everyone uses now
i loved how the ref was like :O! when he first saw it
We started that prescore thing in our area … we like to bend rules …
Very funny story about ramming auton…out A and B team were against each other in the Semi’s and we were in the corner squares right next to each other. At the time we didn’t have an LCD screen so instead we made a switch out of a potentiometer, but we forgot to switch it to the right side so we ended up plowing backwards into the goalpost all the way to the wall and our B team’s auton case within a half inch of dropping a full 5 tubes onto our rear supports that we use to lay the robot on it back lol
There’s a few teams that pick up the other teams’ rings and store them in a bin. It’s a pretty effective if only one side has it. If both sides have an effective version of it though, it could get pretty interesting.